Three Visions

by Tony Johnson

  “It wasn't right! Murder is a crime. Don’t justify what you did.”

  “They deserved it!” Malorek shouted.

  “They deserved a trial,” Caesar easily breathed out, trying to talk calmly and cooly to return the conversation to an amicable level.

  Malorek remained quiet for a long time. The only sounds were of raindrops, the raging sea, blowing winds, and the clasps and echoes of thunder.

  “This is your last chance,” Caesar warned. “Surrender or die.”

  I will not surrender, Malorek thought, turning to face his enemy. He smiled a sadistic smile, one mixed with excitement to fight and a chance to get revenge on the friend who had betrayed him by dating Sarah without his permission.

  The two figures stood opposite each other on the beach in the darkness of the night, illuminated only by the yellow moon and the flashes of lightning strikes overhead. With their weapons drawn, the two warriors ran at each other with a war cry. In a collision of metal and sparks, Caesar and Malorek battled in the pouring rain until one quick thrust of a sword pierced through armor and deeply into flesh.

  Sarah sat on the edge of the bed, unable to sleep. Her stomach twisted in an uncomfortable knot of worry. After what felt like hours of waiting, there was a knock at the door.

  She knew this was either her husband, home safely, or a warrior, come to tell her that Caesar was killed in action. As she stood and entered the hallway, the unlocked door opened at the far end. There, stood Caesar, dripping wet, but standing. Sarah ran to embrace him, wrapping her arms around her husband, but he didn’t embrace her in return.

  Just before she was about to pull back to see what was wrong, a scimitar pierced her through the stomach. Malorek had been standing behind her dead husband, propping him up in the doorway. He shoved his blade through the gaping hole in Caesar’s back and into the stomach of Sarah. She fell to the floor as Malorek let go of her husband’s body, which collapsed next to her. With one hand, Sarah pressed it to her mortally-impaled stomach, uselessly attempting to curb the flow of blood. With the other, she pulled herself up onto Caesar and checked for any signs of life.

  “Caesar! Caesar!” she repeatedly cried, shaking his body. Seeing that he was dead, she turned to Malorek, who had entered the house and was heading towards Tyrus and Darren's room. “Don't kill the children!” she begged, crawling through her own pool of blood to grab Malorek's ankle before he could make it any further.

  Malorek kicked her off him and pressed his boot hard into her stomach as a warning not to touch him again. He took a couple more steps down the hall and opened the door to where the three-year-old and two-year-old were sleeping. Seeing the two boys, the murderer watched them sleep as he spoke to Sarah behind him. “I just wanted to see what we could've had. None of this would've happened if you would've chosen me, Sarah. What a terrible mistake you made. It cost you your life.”

  “Why did you do this?” Sarah muttered out, coughing up blood that was now coming up her throat and filling her mouth.

  “It's therapeutic,” Malorek answered, quietly closing the door to the kid’s room. He turned around to watch as Sarah took her last breath, her arm stretched over her husband’s chest. Leaving the two dead bodies, Malorek left the Canard residence and escaped into the stormy night.

  Chapter 75

  Ty’s vision ended and the white light that had temporarily overtaken him was gone. Looking down over the main deck before him, all his friends faced the same perils they were in before the vision began.

  It was as if I passed out then came to, but I know I didn’t because instead of everything going dark, everything turned bright. No time has passed, and nothing has changed, except for the fact I’ve had a dream-like vision which is now part of my memory. Thinking through that explanation was Ty’s best way of explaining what happened. He clenched the hilts of the swords in each of his hands as he thought about what had been revealed. It was Malorek, the Hooded Phantom, who killed my parents. I was only two years old and he took them from me!

  All the metal touching Ty’s body—the swords in his hands, his armor plate, and gauntlets—began sparking with yellow electricity. Letting out a groan of agony and rage, Ty emitted an elemental pulse that blasted everyone around him away, except for Myoki, who he made sure was spared. He then forewent the wooden steps leading down from Andonia’s stern deck by jumping over the railing and dropping to the main deck.

  Upon landing, his electricity conducted with the layer of seawater the pirates around him were standing in. All fell, paralyzed by the shock that went through their bodies. Ty stood from his ten-foot drop unaffected. Pointing the tip of one of his swords towards the ratlines, he shot out a blast of lightning, knocking off everyone who was headed to hurt Kari. The four men tumbled down, two falling into the sea, and two falling back onto Tiderunner from which they had come.

  The attention of both friend and foe turned towards the rear of Andonia, to the blonde-haired Elf with a sheer look of anger on his face. Two pirates courageously attempted to attack him, but Ty parried both their swords with his own. With their swords still touching, Ty focused on his power and increased the voltage in his metal blades, causing electricity to run through his weapons and into the touching blades of the two pirates who foolishly attacked him. Both men collapsed immediately.

  “I told you what would happen if you came after us,” Steve warned Jarek, who, in fascination of Ty had let go of his grip on Steve. Steve could have easily impaled Jarek with Brightflame but chose to spare the captain’s life. He knows he’s outmatched now that he’s battling two elemental elect, Steve figured.

  “Re--retreat!” Jarek stuttered, frantically climbing back onto his own ship.

  Steve could only smile as he stood facing Sharksbane and watched dozens of pirates sprint away in fear. But it wasn’t Ty the men were running from.

  “Kraken!” one of the pirates shouted in sheer terror as he passed Steve. At that very moment, Steve turned and watched two giant tentacles, longer than any of Andonia’s masts, wrap around Tiderunner. With a giant, bellowing roar that came from the depths of Lake Azure, three more monstrous tentacles joined the first two and together all squeezed and clamped down on the ship, crushing it in half. The pirates who had remained on the boat and hadn’t fought on Andonia jumped into raging waters, their only chance of survival.

  “I told you this wasn’t a natural storm!” Jun-Lei yelled, nervous herself. She ran to the center of Andonia with Haruto where she gathered with Steve, Grizz, Ty, Copper, Kyoko, and Kari, who had climbed down from the crow’s nest.

  “We need to get away from here as soon as possible,” she said, bracing herself against another wave crashing over the ship by holding onto the fallen mast that Tiderunner had leveled with their cannonballs. The surge of seawater carried away the paralyzed bodies of those killed in action. Once it drained over the sides, Jun-Lei left the group and headed to the helm to take control of the ship back from Myoki.

  “What is that thing?” Grizz asked breathlessly from the fighting as he stared at the monster’s suction-cupped tentacles.

  “It’s a sea monster. A kraken,” Haruto explained, amid wincing from the awful crunching of Tiderunner’s wood as the monster dragged the ship under the surface of the turbulent water. The entire ship and its crew disappeared completely, except for a few stray floating boards and barrels.

  “It’s like a squid, but in giant monster form,” Kyoko added. “It likely has used the elements of water and wind to manipulate a storm that already exisited. For what reason, I don’t know. It could’ve been battling another monster or was warning us not to sail near it. Either way, we’re in danger here.”

  Jun-Lei, like Jarek, was attempting to create as much distance from the kraken as possible, but she couldn’t gain any separation. Underneath Andonia and Sharksbane, in a stretch of water a half-mile wide, all the water began turning counter-clockwise.

  “It’s creating a whirlpool to prevent us from
escaping!”

  “Sevenoak too! Look!” Kari pointed, seeing the ship directly across from them on the opposite side of the spinning waters, having lost all control. Suddenly, as they watched Jarek’s smallest ship, a ten-foot wide waterspout shot upwards, piercing through Sevenoak’s hull. Immediately, it began taking on water and was destined to sink, but the impatient kraken sped up the process by pulling it under the waters.

  Still near Andonia, but slightly farther away since the whirlpool had moved the heavier ship at a slower rate of speed, Jarek signaled his men to fire all of Sharksbane’s cannons at the giant squid. With a dual-leveled hull, Jarek had cannons both on his main deck and directly underneath, appearing through windows that opened in the side of the ship. With smoke and bright flashes, dozens of cannonballs were launched.

  “Do the same thing! Fire at it!” Jun-Lei shouted down through the wind and rain.

  “Come on!” Haruto carried out the call, using torches to light the cannons.

  “A direct hit!” Kari exclaimed, seeing the kraken reel from the attack. After two more volleys from Sharksbane and another from Andonia, the squid left the final remnants of Sevenoak alone and disappeared into the depths of Lake Azure.

  “I think we did it!” Steve exclaimed, looking over the edge of the ship and seeing the whirlpool stop.

  “I’m not so sure,” Haruto disagreed. “The wind, waves, and rain are all still pretty powerful.”

  As they nervously peered over the side of the ship, looking for any sign of the monster, another waterspout shot up, this time aimed at Sharksbane, but the attack only grazed the side. As everyone on Andonia watched Jarek’s crew race over to check on the damage, the kraken latched onto the back of the ship, grabbing and snapping two of the masts and completely collapsing their sterncastle cabins.

  The heroes watched the destruction from the rail of the main deck as Andonia sailed away, but suddenly their ship made a sharp turn and headed straight back to the carnage.

  “What’s she doing?” Grizz asked of Jun-Lei as everyone gazed up to the shipmaster behind the wheel.

  “It’s going to kill them all,” Jun-Lei shouted her reasoning in a voice of dismay. “They don’t deserve that.”

  “Hurry, grab some scorcher bombs,” Steve said, as Andonia pulled in behind the kraken whose focus was entirely on destroying the back half of Sharksbane.

  Together, everyone threw the blackpowder and alcohol-concoctions, many of which exploded on the monster’s back. When the beast turned around and latched onto the front of Andonia, Sharksbane used the opportunity to sail away.

  “They’re not going to help us like we helped them?” Grizz cursed Captain Jarek and everyone on the ship as they headed south, back to Port Meris.

  “We don’t need them. Maybe there’s something I can do,” Ty turned toward the bow of Andonia and looked to the still-stormy skies, filled with flashes of lightning. Channeling what little energy remained after already using a lot of his elemental ability, Ty’s armor sizzled and cracked with electricity, matching the lightning above where the kraken attacked.

  With his swords sheathed, the Elf extended his hands towards the sky. “I can feel how powerful it is.” At that moment, three bolts of lightning cracked down, striking the head of the giant squid and the water around it. An ear-piercing squeal filled the air as the kraken released its grip on Andonia and disappeared for a final time.

  Immediately, Ty blacked out, collapsing from having pushed himself too far. He slumped against a cannon, nearly falling over the rail of the ship, but not before both Steve and Kari reached out, grabbed him, and held him up.

  “He did it!” Haruto was fascinated by the Elf’s demonstration of power.

  “Is everyone okay?” Jun-Lei ran down to join her crew. “Any injuries?”

  Everyone shook their head, but Kari noticed Steve was looking pale and had blood dripping down his face. “Oh, Steve, you reopened the cut on your forehead.”

  “She’s right,” said Haruto, seeing the wound. “Jarek got you pretty good, Steve. You shouldn’t do anything too strenuous until we mend that cut. Here, let me take Ty,” he offered, taking Steve’s place under the unconscious Elf’s shoulder.

  “I think it’s going to need stitches,” Kari winced as she looked at Steve’s injury closer.

  “You all get cleaned up and bandaged if needed,” Jun-Lei said. “We should be out from under the storm in another half hour or so. To my crew: once you’re ready, I need you to check on all the ship’s damages and start fixing what you can.” Then, before returning to relieve Myoki of the steering once again, Jun-Lei spoke earnestly to the impressive team that stood before her.

  “Well done, everyone. I know that wasn’t easy for any of us, but I’m proud of what we accomplished here on Andonia today and the teamwork you showed.”

  Chapter 76

  Grizz, returning to the mood he’d been in before the morning’s excitement, left to find a quiet place to continue mourning his family.

  Down in the hull, Haruto and Kari laid Ty on a table. While they allowed the Elf to comfortably rest until he regained consciousness, Haruto turned to Steve and examined the cut on his forehead.

  “I can go get my suture kit if you’re okay with allowing me to stitch you up. It’s usually my job to do this whenever one of the crew on Andonia gets injured.”

  “No problem. I trust you.”

  “It’ll probably only be six or seven stitches, so it’ll still sting quite a bit. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Hold this against your head to help slow the bleeding until I get back,” Haruto reccomended, handing Steve a towel.

  Haruto left the Human, Halfling, and unconscious Elf alone. Kari sat down across from Steve and began smiling as she reflected on the revelations of the past few minutes. “It happened again. You saw it, right?”

  “I did,” Steve confirmed, now smiling himself, happy for the excellent news Kari got out of Ty’s vision.

  “My father and Malorek were both in the vision,” she explained. “What we saw proves my dad is not the Hooded Phantom.” The Halfling’s smile wavered before ultimately collapsing as she sat there. Shaking her head, the silver-armored archer shared, “I can’t believe a part of me believed he might’ve been Malorek.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for considering it. A lot of facts pointed to him by coincidence. Maybe we’ll see another vision that shows us what happened to your dad.”

  “I hope so, but I fear it might show Malorek murdering him.” Kari looked at Ty's motionless body, sympathizing with him for what his vision showed. “I can't imagine what he’s going through after seeing that.”

  “I always figured the murder must've been bad, knowing that both of his parents were killed in their own home, but I didn't know it was going to be like that,” Steve admitted.

  “It was too much,” Kari agreed. “It was like an advanced dream, where I could feel what everyone in the scene felt as it played out. Malorek, Caesar, Sarah, Titus, and my father. I could feel their emotions, the pain, everything.”

  Ty began to stir, but it took him a full minute to come to, open his eyes, and sit up. He swung his legs over the side of the table and sat there holding his head. Resting his hands on the metal table, the Elf sent an electrical current over its surface to test that what just happened was real. When it worked, he broke down crying.

  “My parents, how could he do that to them?” Ty wept as he muttered to himself. Not wanting to be seen in front of his two friends, he got up, exited the hull, and headed up to his cot in the forecastle.

  “I've never seen him cry like that,” Steve felt for his brother's emotional pain. “And I’ve never seen him as upset as he was when he got his element.”

  “You should give him some time alone,” Kari opined, seeing Steve contemplating going after him. “At least for a little bit.”

  “Hey, what's wrong with him?” Haruto asked, coming back into the kitchen, having just crossed paths
with the emotional Ty.

  “Ah, nothing,” Kari pretended as if it wasn’t anything serious. “The fighting just took a lot out of him.”

  Shrugging his shoulders, the sailor accepted the answer as valid and held his suture to a candle to sterilize the needle. “Alright, up on the table with you. The sooner this is over, the sooner you’ll be healed up.”

  “Here, hold my hand,” Kari offered as Steve sat where Ty just had. “You can squeeze it when it hurts too much.”

  “Thanks,” Steve took it in his own, and then immediately crushed it with a white-knuckled grip as Haruto pierced his needle through the skin next to Steve’s gash. For the next couple minutes, Steve winced, closing one eye as tight as possible while keeping the other open, all while holding Kari’s hand in a death-grip.

  “All done,” Haruto announced, giving a hard tug on the end of the suture, pulling the skin together as tight as possible.

  After an audile groan and one last squeeze of Kari’s hand, Steve let go, feeling the intense throbbing in his forehead already subsiding. “Would you mind checking the stitches in my shoulder?” Steve asked, rolling up the sleeve of his tunic.

  Poking and prodding the skin around the previous injury, Haruto declared, “It’s still healing. It looks like it was a pretty deep cut, but the color of the bruising tells me it’s getting better. I’d give it another four or five days before taking the stitches out. As far as your forehead, you can probably get those taken out at the same time since it isn’t as severe as your shoulder was.”

  “Sounds good,” Steve was appreciative of the help. “Thank you.”

  After the three cleaned up the kitchen, Steve and Kari volunteered to stay and prepare lunch for the crew while they tended to the ship. Before Haruto left, Steve succinctly asked, “Right before Ty started attacking with lightning, did you experience any sort of vision?”